What's the difference between platitude and prosaic?

Platitude


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being flat, thin, or insipid; flat commonness; triteness; staleness of ideas of language.
  • (n.) A thought or remark which is flat, dull, trite, or weak; a truism; a commonplace.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In any case, people had tired of combative rhetoric and wanted softer platitudes.
  • (2) It’s clear she lends a sympathetic ear to many reformist ideas; in London last year she said: “We must constantly renew Europe’s political shape so that it keeps up with the times.” Beyond the platitudes, Merkel is open to reforms to the internal market, to competitiveness, to the bureaucracy and even to some of the institutions.
  • (3) Mills said: "Young people are not going to settle for the political platitudes that were sold to the post-independence generation.
  • (4) She said no surprises about the election date should mean "no excuses",  a clear barb at the conservative opposition leader, Tony Abbott, whom she has criticised as announcing "platitudes not policies" and giving few costings for his promises.
  • (5) The duke’s statements about business, which to our tin ears sound like simplistic platitudes of the first water, are in fact fantastically complex and prescient exercises of soft power without which our economy simply could not function.
  • (6) Of course, at the end of the day, though, what workers really need is pay, not platitudes.
  • (7) Don Berwick's report on patient safety in the NHS has been attacked for being "strong on platitudes" and lacking in clear instructions.
  • (8) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
  • (9) She provides a strong contrast to her sanctimonious, humourless sister Mary, who spouts empty platitudes about acceptable female conduct.
  • (10) Time and time again Corbyn ducks saying things like that, preferring to shelter behind platitudes like “give peace a chance”.
  • (11) Humble and hard working” may be the standard response from footballers asked about their team-mates but with Gabriel it gets repeated so often and in a tone so convincing that it no longer sounds like a platitude.
  • (12) Such “we are all one world” platitudes infuriate those whose families and communities will bear the impact of any new migration, coming from those who have no intention of bearing it at all.
  • (13) By and large, however, Obama stuck to empty platitudes that no one could disagree with (“we need to ... protect our children’s information” and “I intend to protect a free and open internet”) rather than offering concrete new proposals.
  • (14) Please don't give me the "aunts are loved too" platitudes.
  • (15) Enough platitudes and excuses: here is the truth about this week of sexism Read more But you don’t just tell people to respect women, you show that you respect women.
  • (16) You know if you've read Capital or if you've got the Cliff Notes , you know that his imaginings of how classical Marxism – of how his logic would work when applied – kind of devolve into such nonsense as the withering away of the state and platitudes like that.
  • (17) Now we're onto the junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is spouting equally meaningless platitudes.
  • (18) "We need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago and to make sure that what we said was not just a bunch of platitudes.
  • (19) I’m not interested in platitudes or buzzwords like “anti-austerity” or “aspiration”.
  • (20) Malcolm Turnbull refuses to denounce Trump's travel ban Read more Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turnbull: ‘When I have frank advice to give an American president, I give it privately’ This is not the time for the Australian government to offer mealy-mouthed platitudes about not commenting on the policies of other countries.

Prosaic


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Prosaical

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Short of setting up a hotline to the Met Office – or, more prosaically, moving to a country where the weather best suits our condition, as Dawn Binks says several sufferers she knows have done – migraineurs can do little to ensure that the climate is kind to them.
  • (2) More prosaically, but sensibly, the publishing division, which includes all of the company's newspaper titles, will retain the News Corp name when the company's separation occurs in July.
  • (3) He calls himself a micro-economist, or more prosaically, a "data guy".
  • (4) It always seemed too prosaic to say merely that he was governing director of Tennants Estate Ltd from 1967 to 1991 and chairman of the Mustique Company from 1969 to 1987.
  • (5) The prosaic question for the armchair mountaineer is, can the dying be saved?
  • (6) The question of what to do about it is, I'm afraid, disappointingly prosaic.
  • (7) Some of the company's actions are more prosaic than they may first appear.
  • (8) There is a bucolic tendency running deep in the national character, expressing itself in a love of rustic poets and painters, and it is this part of us that has turned to fury at the coalition government and its prosaically named Draft National Planning Policy Framework.
  • (9) If the second Wall Street feels flat in comparison, that's because that culture of greed is no longer novel or outrageous; it's almost prosaic.
  • (10) Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, is less prosaic, warning of an imminent crisis for many households: "Ofgem and the government have massive questions to answer.
  • (11) It has as clear a progression as a common cold, and is no less prosaic in its wanderings: loneliness, or discomfort in one's skin; enjoyable drug use; then reckless, or desperate, drug use; then denial; then recovery, or death.
  • (12) Rather, the answer is far more prosaic, which is French for "boring": fashion writers are quite lazy.
  • (13) Facebook Twitter Pinterest But a more prosaic response to Let the Music Use You might be to say that Knuckles implicitly understood what happened on a nightclub dancefloor because he spent virtually his entire life in nightclubs.
  • (14) And, more prosaically, we know that Rita Ora " dazzled in a low-cut jumpsuit " as she left her hotel today.
  • (15) Now, says Horne: “People here have looked at what Virgin have done on the West Coast line and are excited by the prospect of a similar transformation of services.” The image he uses is “a hotel on wheels”, adding: “There are very few commuters on this line – if people are using it, it’s because they want to, we have to impress them.” The reaction of staff and passengers at York station on Monday was more prosaic, with few changes yet visible to most except the Virgin stickers in the window, new staff badges and plastic Virgin windcheaters concealing old uniforms to keep out the snow showers.
  • (16) This song, a highlight of Prince’s live boxset One Nite Alone … is the exception, an angry horn-driven jam which Prince would perform to a somewhat prosaic video of passengers being hassled as they came through customs while intoning “You must remove your shoes” in a scary tonebox-altered Darth Vader voice.
  • (17) Can you imagine what it was like to move here in the 90s, from the land of the prosaically titled Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, to a country where one of the most popular shows was called Drop The Dead Donkey?
  • (18) The crowd, 40,181, was the lowest by some distance since this stadium opened in 2007 and, with two shots on target all night, it was a prosaic way for England to prepare for their first Euro 2016 qualifier in Switzerland on Monday.
  • (19) But Johnson had other more prosaic work to do and there were moments when he looked less than comfortable doing it.
  • (20) The classic Rendell hallmarks were all there from the beginning – the sense of place, the delicate filleting of the characters’ psyches, the avoidance of the prosaic both in character and in motivation.